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U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

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671–680 of 802 posts

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#671
> This new company would also have an American-dominated board with one member designated by the U.S. government.

This is the part I'm really curious about : what is the legal framework for mandating a privately-owned company to have a board member designated by the government ?

The closest thing I could imagine is "national" companies (totally or partially owned by the government.) We have plenty of that in France (once in a while the State would nationalize energy utilities, banks, car makers, etc... then make them private again, then buy x% of them, etc, etc...)

In this case I completely understand that the "State" wants their say in the board - they have money in the game.

But here, it does not seem like the US are part of the new ownership (or did I miss that ?)

So, what happens when the next government nominates a board member that Elison dislikes ? On which law would a judge rule ?

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#672
post #394
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boobs, butts, gambling, brain rot, watchbait/ragebait, all that stuf I don't understand how other people have this experience and I don't. I see targeted ads of course. And every once in a while it starts showing me content for things I don't follow, at which point I start mashing the button they provide to make it go away, and after a handful it pops up something asking if I want to remove all suggested content fo…

Most people aren't actively curating their feed like this. They see an attractive person, eyes wander for a few seconds longer than the usual post before scrolling away, and that is enough.

But I'd at least think that anyone who is complaining about what content they're seeing, the algorithm, etc knows enough to do this too. Especially on a site like ths.

Instead online discourse often revolves around this being an impossible task. Meanwhile on all the social media sites I use I have managed to keep algorithmic content to a minimum.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#673
post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's changing, though. They working together, but the balance is tilting towards the US government and worse, towards individuals controlling it.

The U.S. is moving to state capitalism ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism ) which is common in fascist regimes (think Nazi Germany or fascist Italy)

Which should also be deemed very inefficient, if I understand correctly. Germany's growth was unsustainable. A realistic example would be Spain, where 36 years of real-world fascism left the country well behind comparable countries.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#674

With, apparently, a board member appointed by the Trump administration. The U.S Steel deal included three board seats, but the Intel deal did not include any. This is starting to look like the way China does things, with the central government having a financial stake in important companies.

I'm not a fan of the administration by any means but a lot of democracies do this. Public/Private partnerships are commonplace in Europe.

That's irrelevant. Did this happen frequently in the US history? The US does not simply adopt France's laws but makes their own for a reason.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are slowly becoming Communist China. Won't be long until all companies will be required to have a party office.

This is such a funny take. In China corporations operate at the behest of the government. In the US the government operates at the behest of corporations.

All that means is an interchange of definitions: Chinese calls "corporations" what US calls "government" and vice versa. But not fundamental different reality.

On planet Floorp, carpets (organic bipedal tetrapods) use people (machines that suck air) to clean vacuums (woolen floor lining). How quaint - no, not really, that's exactly the same as on Earth but with different words.

There are good arguments to be made that the USA's government is corporations, and the entity we call "the US government" doesn't actually meet the definition of being the government of the US.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#677
post #205

Key details: 1. New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users. 2. 80% owned by a U.S. investor consortium led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz, 20% by Bytedance. 3. Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director. 4. All U.S. user data would sit on Oracle infrastructure in the US. 5. Algorithm will be initially licensed, but has to be reengineered to comp…

Of all the tech companies, Oracle seems to be making the most and a killing due to Larry's cosy relations with Trump. Last week's announcement that they have a 500 B deal with Open AI, and now this. Elon really fucked up!

Who would have thunk, that a favor would evaporate soon! Isn't this like negotiating 101?

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#678
post #390
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s very interesting, I wonder if the toxicity of the American culture wars can be contained this way. Also, I see creators, trying to create US based TikTok accounts because they believe that this way their content will be shown to Americans, which are better monetized. If that’s the case, I wonder if international creator will move to the American TikTok for the better payout. It the international creators stay…

> I wonder if the toxicity of the American culture wars can be contained this way. Huh? Are you not aware of US social media companies? Everything that's happening on TikTok is also happening on X, Facebook, Friendster, or whatever the kids are using these days. The only difference is that the TikTok algorithm promotes Chinese propaganda and ideology, and enriches the Chinese government and ByteDance. The US can't ha…

I don't think they're banning it because it promotes what China wants. I think they're banning it because it doesn't promote what the US wants. The US is not offended that you can't criticize Tiananmen Square. It's fine whether you can or can't criticize Tiananmen Square. Only China cares about that.

The reverse also happens - Gaza being the main one. China couldn't give two shits about what happens in the middle east - it's not involved at all. So it lets footage be played sometimes. But the USA cares deeply about making sure young people don't see footage of Gaza and that's the sort of thing that motivates the US to ban this app.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you saying? Fediverse is bad because scary transgenders?

They aren’t saying that - and you know they aren’t. They’re also correct. Fediverse, in my actual experience, is overwhelmingly filled with hyper left leaning echo chamber content that I’m not interested in.

It's known that reality has a strong left-wing bias. Can you specify further?

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#680
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few hundred million of that rural population have become city folk.

> A few hundred million of that rural population have become city folk. Not legally, IIRC China has an internal passport system, and workers who migrate to the city from the countryside typically remain must registered in the countryside (and are therefore denied access to city benefits).

hukou has changed a lot, particularly since 2014 and you'll find that it exist in its strictest form only for cities > 5 million inhabitants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou
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